Return to The Quarry

Chapter Fourteen

 The water wrung out of everyone's clothes sounded like rain as it fell onto the flagstones of the patio built over the shore. In the stark light of the full moon, everything, especially the wet stones, gleamed. The surface of the lake from which they had just dragged themselves began to resume its calm ebbing. Down the shore, the security light over the boathouse dock glowed, an eclipse of moths fluttering around its electric glare.

There was no sign of Jacob or Emma.

"Are they still in the water?" Laura asked.

"I don't think so," said Dylan. "They had to have gotten to shore."

Ryan turned to the flagstoned shore and the metal arbor. Abi did as well.

He shook his head. "Wow. Where it all began."

Abi looked at the permanent fire circle not far from where the more primitive one from the camp days used to sit.

"You know," she began, "I still have dreams about this place. We're still around the fire, but the sun is coming up."

An owl called in the distance. But it was movement on the distant dock of the boathouse that caught Anton's attention.

"Shit! Look out!" He pointed to the dark figure of the Man in the Hood as he stepped purposefully across the dock to its end. For the first time, everyone got a good look at him.

He was tall and athletic, though not brawny. From what could be understood in spite of the dark, somehow primitive clothes he wore, he was possessed of a physique that allowed him to be strong and stealthy at the same time. A terrifying combination. He carried himself with complete awareness that he was the only thing he had to fear in the night.

Kaitlyn tensed at the sight of the array of weapons strapped to his formidable person. She could clearly make out rope and the flash of a sharpened blade of some sort. But the crossbow on his back and the quiver of arrows was unmistakable.

Without sound, everyone crept back inland around the rise of stone that provided a sort of blind between the Man in the Hood and the small area. Sheltered there, they watched as he knelt and followed a trail back up the dock.

"Looks like Jacob and Emma made it to shore," said Grace.

In the upstairs storage area of the boathouse, a light came on. The man's form appeared at the ledge, and he angrily slammed his fists.

They must have gotten away, Nick thought.

Yet something moved, unseen by any of them in the darkness behind them. A gray hand, one wrinkled with age, reached from the shadows of the forest and found the small metal cover of an outdoor electrical switch mounted to one of the uprights of the arbor. Silently, the old fingers slithered beneath the housing and found the switch.

Everyone watched the Man in the Hood intently. Then, without warning, the entire area exploded into gentle ambient light. They squinted as they looked up overhead, finding that the Edison bulbs now glowed like a bunch of warm stars. The effect would have been cozy in any other circumstance, but there, in the midst of a killer searching for any indication of their whereabouts, they felt nothing short of exposed.

"Oh," Dylan groaned, "fuck you, mood lighting!"

The sounds of things being overturned in the boathouse echoed over to them, as the Man in the Hood had no doubt come down the stairs and was searching for where Jacob and Emma were hiding. He came out onto the dock again and drew up short upon seeing the lit up trellis. With catlike agility, he broke into a run back up the dock.